Mixtape Review-Lit Forever II by Nick Jame$

Thizzler.com has become more than a website that posts music. It’s a brand of music. Look no further for evidence of this than Nick Jame$-Lit Forever II mixtape. While Thizzler posts all manner of bay area slap they control a great deal of it, naming freshman newcomers and putting compilations together and lately tagging Lit Forever II and Young Gully’s HM5 with “Thizzler presents” in front and giving both splashy advertisements all over the site. Both projects being really good is what made me take notice.

The opening of Lit Forever II as a file can make it look crazy. Its twenty five tracks long with five skits and only three songs without guests. It has absolutely no consistency. The lushly hypnotizing sample and down to earth lyrics of Feels So Good are disarmingly likeable “I swear I’m such a stand up guy and that’s without even standing. I’m just a kid from the Pitt so you can’t tell me sh_t. Still got a dollar and a dream and ain’t wakin’ till I’m rich,” but that’s only one gear. Rollin Weed & Countin Green has a surprisingly slowed down post DJ Screw feeling that makes you wonder if a Chamillionaire verse wouldn’t have fit perfectly after Dave Steezy. Don’t let the chameleon feeling fool you, Nick Jame$ has no problem putting out pimptastic characteristically west coast bangers. You can throw him on a song with Erk Tha Jerk and you get The Sh_t that feels like it came out of my favorite West Coast songs of 1994 playlist. Put him on a ratchet song with Kool John & Jay Ant and somehow he fits and you get the song Burn That Sh_t which goes hard (regardless of a pretty simplistic chorus).

It was my fault for trying to fit this project into a playlist on my first listen. The Piano plink that starts Money came on and it felt like it was being played by Tom Hanks character in the movie Big in the middle of a department store with Robert Loggia. A goofy voice started the chorus and I remember thinking “who is this again?” You might come back to that a few times during your own Lit Forever II listen. It’s a project in which inconsistency is its theme. Being the kind of listener that prizes consistency like an 8th grade English teacher this had me pulling hair out for a while. Is he a weed rapper? Is he ratchet? Combine that with the fact that his guests are all fantastically gifted and consistent artists (the most impressive being Young Gully who leaves a trail of dust behind two guest verses) Shark Sinatra, Jay Ant, Ya Boy, they provide what you would expect.

What ultimately won me over on it is that despite the length(SO LONG) and the skits(WHY?) and the scatter brain feeling of it all (it actually has a song on it called Scatter Brain that’s really low key and excellent) Lit Forever II gives unstoppable fun all throughout. Up, Hatin, Dreamin, Money, and so many more of the songs are absolute must hear exceptional. The production style shifts as drastically as Nick’s sensibilities do but don’t get it twisted this isn’t a bi-polar contradictory MC. He’s about having sex, fun, and money and on the way he’ll get personal but nothing he says ever feels staged. As much as I’m sure he wants to express himself through his music I can’t help but get the idea that Nick Jame$ wants to be able to jam out to his own music just as badly. That’s the kind of project Thizzler loves to post.